


Gemini - Side B

by Seruitutem



Series: The Zodiac Project [2]
Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Gen, M/M, Talk of eye gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-22 17:04:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13171347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seruitutem/pseuds/Seruitutem
Summary: Did you know that Codename Gemini is actually two people? Now you know. Here's the other side of the coin.





	Gemini - Side B

**Author's Note:**

> Surprise, Gemini is a pair of twins.

Dae-Hyun was his real name. Codename, Gemini. His twin was given Dae-Sung, but once accepted into the Zodiac Project, those names were lost to history. Twelve aliases, thirteen soldiers, Gemini had presented a special case.

Completely identical, they were, in nearly every aspect. Their only true difference laid in their conduct. Dae-Hyun leaned more on the personable side, more willing to talk with civilians as an equal, while Dae-Sung kept conversation short and clipped, with everyone. Stand them side by side, with their blue and pink hair, and their synthetic eyes, they were the same person.

They'd been separated in the Vault, Dae-Sung had woken last, Dae-Hyun had long since left for the freedom of the surface, resolved to wait nearby for his twin to join. That had lasted a few days, before the threat of radiation storms, raiders, and hunger had driven the pink twin to the nearest settlement. Guilt ate at him while he ate at cooked radstag ribs. But Goodneighbor had been welcoming enough to entice him to stay a day or two. Full of drifters and other misfits like himself, where they didn't stare too long at his glowing yellow eyes if he didn't stare too long at their pitch eyes and scarred skins.

It was there, in the back room of the Third Rail, that he met Robert Joseph MacCready. A skinny man with a large gun, with dark hair kept under a ratty cap, and a clumsily regarded vocabulary. Dae-Hyun had to admit, it was somewhat adorable how the merc stumbled over half formed swears, nearly saying the entire word before finally catching himself. It made it easier to talk to him, knowing just how human he was in a world of cold indifference.

It made it easier to open up to him, when MacCready peeled back the pages of his own tale. Talk of his childhood, his departed wife, his ailing son, hearing MacCready bare his soul gave him the courage to reciprocate. His tales of military work were more on the gritty side, but MacCready took most of it in stride- up until the story about the war prison camp.

He and his twin both had been captured at the same time, taken to the same camp. Both sat in the same room, strapped to chairs facing each other. Each had a tray of tools at the side, with blades both medical and recreational. Chinese officers had met them with stony faces and rough hands.

Dae-Sung had been the first. Hand in his blue hair, head yanked back, he refused to talk. He endured the scissors cutting his cheeks in two, barely uttering even a whimper. He endured watching Dae-Hyun experience a handful of differently sized blades cut up the left side of his face. Dae-Hyun also kept his silence. Identical in so many ways, that was why they were both granted the same alias.

But when the Chinese officer standing over Dae-Sung selected a sharpened soup spoon, a makeshift shiv, when he slid the spoon under Dae-Sung's left eye- Dae-Hyun heard his brother scream, and he soon joined.

Dae-Sung's cheek was painted a deep crimson, his arms tugged violently at their restraints, and with a wet pop, one of his deep brown eyes rested in the dip of the spoon. His screams lessened a fraction, pain still evident in his tone. Dae-Hyun ceased to quell his own noises, his own screams that of terror.

The Chinese officer again asked them, in that eerie, calm manner, to spill their guts, or the second eye would follow. Dae-Sung hoarsely told them, in his own clumsy Cantonese, to kindly fuck off into the nearest fiery ditch. The officer only sighed through his nose, nodded to the officer standing over Dae-Hyun, and an identical spoon slid over his cheekbone and into the socket.

Dae-Hyun echoed his twin's cries of pain, his throat gaining that sandpapery feeling by the time the commanding officer repeated his request. Dae-Hyun didn't answer, his hands were trembling and he was certain he was going to be sick. Another sigh, this one harsher, and Dae-Hyun felt something warm, wet, and spherical pressed to his teeth.

Oh God, no please no-

"You talk!" The lower officer at his side barked in a thick accent, then repeated it in halting Korean. Dae-Hyun shook his head, and a hand gripped at his hair, so close to the scalp, he was sure they'd rip out a handful if he so much as sneezed. Across the room, he heard Dae-Sung choke, muffled, and he knew what they were doing.

Well, I'll give 'em props, but they'll have to try harder than that, he thought grimly. With his remaining eye, he saw Dae-Sung slumped over in his chair, breathing fast. Give us everything you've got, training was harder than this.

The left half of his face had gone numb, and he felt warm, syrupy wetness trailing down his collarbone. Once their comrades came to their rescue, he was sure to look a real fright- he and his brother, both. He was sure of it, when he felt the spoon slide under his right eye.

Both had indeed been rescued by the remainder of the Zodiac Project, Aries' familiar gruff voice was the first thing he remembered, then the aching pains in his eyes- or rather, the sockets. Both were empty. Aries had been telling him, softly, not to move, not to touch his face, that he was being restrained to a stretcher- and that Dae-Sung was alive. Blinded as well, but alive. Dae-Hyun returned to darkness after that.

Both brothers had woken again in the military hospital, in rooms decorated with flowers they couldn't see, with visitors they could only hear. Their superiors, talking in low tones, offering paid medical leave paired with commendations for successfully withholding sensitive information from the enemy. Little comfort, that was, Dae-Hyun had thought bitterly. Their military days were overwith, without their eyes. Their positions in the Zodiac Project were gone, Gemini had been downed.

"The CIT made us an offer, they heard about your cases, and the circumstances regarding." Dae-Hyun was listening only half way by then, who could tell for Dae-Sung.

"They want to use you for a trial- testing out their synthetic organs. They have eyes ready for you, should you consent."

That caught his attention, and he heard the sheets rustle at his side, Dae-Sung was listening, too.

Their commanding officer continued, "They're considering it a sort of reward to you, for your duty and bravery, all expenses will be covered."

Needless to say, they twins consented.

Dae-Sung's new eyes were colorless, stark white slats overlapping each other, just like the viewfinder on a camera. He found that using a scope on his rifle had become obsolete, he could just zoom in and out at will. It also made his stare much more intimidating, a stare that had caught Hancock's attention his first few minutes within the walls of Goodeighbor.

Dae-Hyun's new eyes, he discovered, mirrored another pair. Before the bombs dropped, his eyes only mirrored his twin, and he was fine with that. Deep brown, like the color of Earth, or the bark on a tree in the late Autumn afternoon sunlight.

200 years later, his eyes matched with Valentine's. Dark grey orbs with glowing yellow circles, mock irises, built-in night vision. He wasn't sure how to feel about matching stares with a synth, not at first. MacCready was comfortable around Nick, didn't comment on the exposed circuits and gears, or the metallic skeletal hand, seemed to even trust him, even if just a little.

Ol' Nicky though, he proved himself. From the moment he was 'rescued' from the old subway Vault, to the very moment they reunited with his twin, Nick Valentine mirrored his stare in a way that could only be bred from empathy. Someone else who went through the shit-stream that was life, someone else who was separated from a 'twin', even if Nick hadn't been able to remember. Someone else who suffered from the unkind fist of human cruelty, and had managed to bounce back. Dare he say, he came to call Nick his friend.

That had been cemented after they offed Eddie Winter.

MacCready had listened to his story of war crimes and torture with a growing grimace on his face, and a stare of disbelief. "You really survived all that? Shhhiitake mushrooms." He'd rubbed a hand under his nose, looking away from Dae-Hyun's glowing yellow eyes. "I'm sorry, I mean- I already knew from DC radio that you were part of that cryo-sleep crap in the Vault, but to know you were actually in the War... that you went through all that." He scoffed to himself, taking off his hat to run a hand through his hair. "I'm honestly surprised you still have even an ounce of decency left in you."

The look on Dae-Hyun's face must have been less than pleased, for MacCready continued, "I don't mean it like that. If I were in your shoes, I'd give the world the finger, and let it rot. That's uh, that's a lot to swallow, I can't imagine it being anything better than bitter."

Dae-Hyun only shrugged. "Maybe it's just me, but the bad just helps me treasure the good that much more. Maybe it's because I spent two hundred years on ice, or maybe it's just how my DNA works, but I can see just as much good in this world as there is bad shit." Another shrug, this one less sure. "I met a couple of people who make it worth it, too."

MacCready scoffed again, glanced at the wooden toy soldier Dae-Hyun was turning over in one hand, and sighed. "Yeah, well, you make it worth it, too."


End file.
